This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Lunch time comments..........from off the coast of Italy

Say what you want about former Police Commission Member and the Developer of "The Grove" Shopping Center Rick Caruso. But Caruso leaves no doubt that he is thoroughly enjoying his "fifteen minutes of blogging speculation'' on whether he will join Walter Moore in challenging Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for Mayor in 2009.

So far no other major candidate has declared, but there other people thinking about running -- namely billionaire mall magnate Rick Caruso.

When reached by cellphone this week while sailing off the coast of Italy, Caruso said he will make his decision in the coming months.

It's clear that he's enjoying the reaction he's received as a possible contender.

"Lots of people have called me," he said. He paused and asked one of his sons on the boat: "Do you think I should run?" The answer was a resounding yes. Stay tuned, Caruso said, upbeat on his vacation. He joked: "Antonio could be my running mate."

One gets the idea that Caruso is playing head games with the Mayor who is in the middle of his "TROLL FOR DOUGH A-THON".

Meanwhile back in Hollywood, members of our myopic entertainment community continue in the quest to build up their fellow "star's" campaign war chest in the maybe, "forlorn hope" of scaring any additional challengers to the re-election hopes of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. These Comments from Kerman Maddox.

"People look at him as they would a movie star (well maybe the "sancho character" in a novella)," said public affairs consultant Kerman Maddox, who has been raising campaign cash for Villaraigosa and Democratic presidential candiate Sen. Barack Obama. "When I travel, everyone knows who the mayor of Los Angeles is. You couldn't always say that."

....and this prediction from Maddox,

"Caruso would make the race interesting," said Maddox. "But he can't win. Take that to the bank."

Maddox who I respected in his days on KCET's Life and Times Show with Hugh Hewitt and LA Times Columnist Patt Morrison, needs to get out and about to areas of the city like Sunland-Tujunga, South L.A., West L.A. and that "barometer of political opinion" CD 14, to gauge what is a brewing backlash aimed at a certain "third floor office holder".

I would vote for ANYONE, including Walter, to rid this city of the most ineffective, incompetent, Mechista swindler/thief!!! He doesn't even flinch or feign concern for the citizen taxpayers of this city as he sadistically imposes the most draconian tax hikes ever perpetrated on our citizens!It doesn't bother him for one second that he is flagrantly mugging us and stealing our wallets. He feels ENTITLED to do what ever the hell he pleases! Citizens..be damned!

Well, I have a message for Villar...the voters will NOT forget what you have done to them...and we will run him out of town!

As far as Villar being a "movie star" like figure...recognizable by EVERYONE...that's a rotten LIE! No one paid any attention to him when he was hanging onto Hillary's coattails in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wyoming, Montana, etc. He was a warm-up act and a very bad one, at that. He couldn't string two sentences together unless it was in Spanish. Only the Mexicans know who he is!!! Villar asked Bill Clinton to take him to Rush Limbaugh's table in a restaurant in NYC...Villar wanted to meet him. Well guess what, Rush didn't know who the hell he was, and talked about it AT LENGTH on his radio show the next day! Rush was NOT impressed...he just snickered about it!

I was at the Washington Correspondent's Black Tie Dinner last year and, when Villar strutted through the revolving door of the hotel, he stood there for a few minutes waiting for SOMEONE to come up to him for an interview...GUESS WHAT...HE WAS TOTALLY IGNORED...THE ENTIRE NIGHT! The only person who spoke to him was Wolf Blitzer!!! I was there...I watched him all evening! He looked entirely out of place because he was the only Mexican there, except for Geraldo!

No One knows or cares who he is!!! He just the spokeshole for the Mexicans and illegals...and who cares about them???? Villar is WAY out of his league!!!!!

Villar is mayor of a Mexican city...that's all...a third world Mexican city that is the poster child of what NOT to be! Every state is terrified that their state will fill up with illegal third worlders...just like LA! He might as well be mayor of Tijuana!

The only part of "West L A" that you can claim to speak for are the handful of people who organize to oppose everything -- most everyone is too busy to pay attention to them, or even know who they are. You seem to think the westside is like the EAstside, where we're amused to read about how seriously and fiercely locals take their NC elections.

A different world. HOWEVER, Ed Reyes and and Alarcon are different since they're on the open attack against the westside and its quality of life. Even westsiders who generally ignore city politics as long as it ignores them, and have subsidized failures by paying for private schools and security, ARE realizing something's afoot and it isn't good.

It's a strange way for a serious candidate to act. Even if he's going to fully fund his campaign himself, he should be starting now on name ID and connecting with voters. He can and could have been doing that without saying that he is a candidate, kind of in the way Riordan did it. Everyday that he farts around is a day wasted.

WE LOVE YOU RICK....PLEASE RUN. Rick has more class and integrity in his little finger then the gang banging cholo Mayor. Not only that he has one of the biggest hearts giving thousands to help Latino kids at Para Los Ninos and other organizations. He has a lot of Latino backing because people have had it with the Mexican Mafia crooks llike Antonio, Huizar, Alarcon, Reyes and the rest of the men with no balls. We need a real man like Caruso to lead this city.

Cardenas' parents are immigrants, too -- did they come legally? Like Huizar's and Reyes' they were farm workers who don't speak English beyond a few words, so I doubt it. That must be why they're all so opposed to any distinguishing between legal and illegal aliens, since they're here illegally and probably just got amnesty in 86.

Alex Padilla's parents also came illegally, and to this day can't understand or speak more than a few words of English. They run a small restaurant in the barrio, unless they're recently retired. But the place helped Padilla get to know the community and v.v.

In sunny California, some of the world's sharpest auto salesmen provide a deal of shade. Last week the shadiest of them all was popped into the cooler. Convicted on charges of conspiracy, grand theft and forgery, Auto Dealer Henry J. Caruso—billed as "the greatest" in his radio and TV singing commercials—was packed off to jail for a year, fined $10,000, and enjoined for the next ten years from entering any business in which he would be selling to the public. After Caruso, wary Californians agreed, the public needed a ten-year respite.At his used-and-new Dodge. Pontiac and Plymouth...

Rick Caruso never became rich because of hard work -- he was handed his dirty money which now is being used to fund his lavish lifestyle. Nevermind he doesn't even live in Los Angeles.

And another odd point -- Mayor Sam doesn't seem to care for Rick Caruso either if you look at past comments.

Ha- Ha, that's a good find about Caruso's daddy, totally busted for corruption and apparently, the whole city said "good riddance," a lot of baggage if Caruso were to run on his "story." He's just enjoying his 15 mins. of fame, like Hertzberg did, like Feuer did, before declaring they won't run (and never seriously planned to). Their stances are indicative of the fact that it would be a waste of money to run against Antionio. It's NOT about his qualifications but the fact that liberals aren't going to dump a Mexican, "the first Latino Mayor of L A," just because he had some personal problems. Nothing they wouldn't or haven't done themselves.

The angry Mexican housewives with tortilla pans don't count in any meaningful way, though they do make this city much more Latino-Catholic moralistic than most -- a turn-off to many "gringos" who'll vote the opposite to show they're not still living in the Dark Ages of Catholic Inquisition.

Of course, this in turn scratches up the anti-Semitism barely under the surface for most Latinos: they start attacking the "immoral and greedy Jews," which makes the Hollywood/ big developer types all the more determined to ignore this "primitive" backlash.